Rise
by The Catch
Summary: Soutaichou Byakuya has forbidden Toshiro from rescuing Hinamori. The Kuchiki heiress, tired of feeling weak, fools her father into letting Toshiro search for Momo... On one condition: She's coming along for the ride. And so it begins - slight HitsuOC -


**A/N: This is a "what if" story, the things I think would happen if Hisana gave birth to a daughter right before she died. This is the prologue of the story that will document the life of the Kuchiki Heiress. By the way, this takes place about two years after Rukia's adoption into the Kuchiki clan. **

** Prologue**

The hallways of the Kuchiki Manor were frightening. The dyed chandelier glass colored the light that sprouted from it, casting dark lights throughout the long, lonely tunnels. Where one strip of illuminance ended, another began. Rukia thought them to be tinted shadows, looming in a swirling pattern. They seemingly formed an old, abandoned path; Forsaken, a road in the woods that Rukia was silently expected to follow.

The servants told her that it used to be light, back when a man named Ginrei ruled the Kuchiki clan. These very halls that trailed under her feet, behind her, and stretched eternally before Rukia's violet eyes used to be an indoor stage, one that an irritated Byakuya would sail over when chasing a legend - Yoruichi Shihoin, Goddess of Shunpo.

Rukia couldn't imagine it.

Perhaps the dimly lit hallway, with obsidian colored marble carved in arches, was a structural personification of the bleak emotions Byakuya had felt, and hidden, when he learned of this legend's apparent death. And within the aftermath of Lady Hisana's death, in the same second she exhaled her last breath, the remnants of the light… faded to black.

When she heard the cry of a child, she knew she wasn't alone.

Hesitantly, Rukia followed the passionless, hollow echo of the cry. She held onto its sound until it not even a shard of the sound was present. It lead her to, a door. Presumably, the entrance to a room, presumably… locked.

Rukia struggled to stare down the knob. It seemed to have been alive… once. It seemed something forbidden, something not to be touched. The area beyond was to remain hollow and forgotten, untouched for the rest of time, lost to memories of the dying elderly, never again subjected to reminescence. It was dead, and yet, it seemed to be vibrating.

How could Rukia open the door?

How could she not?

She would have flashbacks of the moment that she did open the door forevermore, and yet all that Rukia would ever see was her outline in a shade like world, nearly tripping through the door and into the uncertainty that lay beyond it, as if her entire existence was just a blur. Never would she be able to define the instance; The next scene, however, was attrociously vivid.

"_Perfect, perfect Miri. My princess, my angel." _

She was swaddled in Byakuya's arms. Byakuya's back was to the wall. He didn't look up. Compared to the tone of him talking to the child, his tone was cold, as if the singular word he spoke was written on paper, unspoken. "Rukia."

Rukia couldn't bring herself to be ashamed of her intrusion. Instead… she felt… unsure. Of how to be, what to say. She declared, in an unknowing, inquiring manner, "Is… is that Miri?" she whispered. There was no answer, just the sound of Byakuya in the rickety rocking chair. Glancing up to the mobile that dangled above Miri's crib, she saw a label. It read "Amiria Kuchiki". The label was dangling off of a lone piece of yarn. It looked as if it might drizzle into the depths of the crib, where silken sheets and a down feather duvet populated the niche made of cherry wood.

So the child's name was Amiria.

Rukia had seen a picture of Lady Hisana before. Frail, with onyx hair and violet colored eyes, and milky, porcelain like skin. Byakuya was just as pale, especially under the moonlight when Rukia would catch glimpses of him on his midnight walks. His tresses were just as potently onyxian as Hisana's, and his eyes were a deep mirrnyong sapphire. Catching fragments of the child - moonlit skin, blood red lips, tranquil royal violet - mirrnyong sapphire eyes, and spiraling obsidian hair, Rukia knew: This was the Kuchiki heiress, the only daughter of Byakuya and Hisana.

Today was April 9th, the day of Hisana's death. Rukia observed the child acutely. There was no blush to match Amiria's lips.

"She knows."


End file.
